little white truths

I've wanted to write this post for ages, but it's taken me some time to work out what to say and how to say it. Animal testing is a huge issue across many industries, and it can sometimes bring out the worst in us when it comes to impassioned debate. So let us not be rude or dismissive. Let's just chat.

I've always been against animal testing (I mean, I used to write 'save the whales' poems in primary school A LOT, and back then, companies made lipsticks with whale blubber - and sadly that's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what we used to do with whales), but it's taken me some time to reach a place in my life where I feel able to set down exactly what I'm doing and what I want to start doing in the fight against animal cruelty.

Because here's the thing: going cruelty free is not necessarily the best way to achieve what we're aiming to achieve - that is, stopping animal testing altogether. There's an argument to say that going cruelty free is a bandaid, the proverbial prevention versus treatment or cure.

As most of us in the beauty community know, Chinese law requires mandatory animal testing on all cosmetics products that are manufactured outside of China and physically sold in China (the animal testing law does not apply to online shopping). For more information, please see crueltyfreekitty.

What I'm saying is, the most effective way to stop animal testing altogether may well be to continually petition the Chinese government AND petition cosmetics companies to join the movement. This is one of those times when we all need to band together: individuals and companies alike.

Might be better than wasting our time getting involved in or fueling social media drama/rubbish that has no moral, ethical or environmental importance?

Also, I would like to paraphrase something that the wonderful Youtubers Kat and Hailey of Beauty News (here they are) have said. Basically, brands like MAC mightn't necessarily know that they're losing market-share because they test on animals - so unless you're writing emails to MAC saying you're not buying MAC products because the brand isn't cruelty free, then MAC mightn't realise that this is one of the reasons why they no longer have the market-stronghold they once did.

Kat and Hailey are right. MAC may believe that they're losing market-share for other reasons: eg they haven't modernised enough so they're not capturing the evolving market; or they're not competitive enough now that the cosmetics industry is mushrooming - which it wasn't doing ten years back.

The message I take from this is: we need to do more than just going cruelty free as individuals.

We need to approach this from every angle. It's a critical mass situation, I think.

And while of course brands are seeing us talking about going cruelty free on social media so they know it's important to many, the thing is, if brands are still turning huge profits (especially in China), then what we're asking them to do is not be businesses.

But they are businesses. And businesses aim to make profit. Yes they can aim to be ethically/environmentally responsible organisations at the same time, but there's an argument to say that we're essentially asking an animal to stop feeding from the greenest pasture. China is a huge market, and it's growing. Businesses need to make money to survive.

Do note, though, that I'm not saying I agree with the 'needs' of the greedy corporate beast (and indeed I used to work for an organisation that monitors corporate social responsibility), so please don't take it that way. What I'm saying is: if corporate giants are turning huge profits and continually expanding those profits, what reason have they to change?

Let's give them a reason. Together. Let's do more than just make cruelty free choices in our own lives. Let's petition the Chinese government. Let's petition the corporate giants and flood them with emails, enlisting them to face China beside us. At the front line.

I'll say it again: critical mass.

You can't move a mountain with a snowball. But you can with an avalanche.

Now, why haven't I talked about transitioning to cruelty free and my stance on this issue before?

First and foremost, I'm lucky enough that my favourite makeup and skincare brands ARE cruelty free - so the vast majority of my collection is cruelty free anyway. This in part has allowed me to focus on another issue that's close to my heart:

WASTE.

I personally am of the view that the older items in my collection should go first, before they turn and I can no longer use them - or before they start to under-perform with age. I would rather use and enjoy my collection, always panning the older items first, always monitoring my spending and collection-size because I'm not one for excess with anything (well, besides coffee ; )) - rather than panning non cruelty free items first and watching my older products go rancid in the process.

Also, with two toddlers it's been difficult enough for me to use and enjoy my makeup/skincare as it is - so I've focused on panning and overall waste-minimisation (yep, I'm a 'tree hugger' too and always have been) because life has been tough and I've needed to fight one battle at a time.

But I'm ready, now, for the next fight.

I think I'll stop here, even though there's a lot more to say. Finances, the frustrations of living in our hamstrung and exorbitant Australian market (we don't get cruelty free budget brands like Wet n Wild here), my struggles with buying Essence mascaras because they're not sold in my local pharmacies/drugstores and I'm not going to waste packaging/shipping by ordering them online, nor do I have the physical or mental energy to source them with two screaming toddlers in the car seats/double pram...

My aim with this post was to open the cruelty free discussion and tell you my stance, and also to let you know that I'll start a more focused transition to cruelty free this year. I have a feeling that my skincare and makeup collections are at least 80 per cent cruelty free already, but I'll do a separate post on that and let you know the percentages exactly.

Do let me know in the comments whether you've made the transition to cruelty free and whether you have any advice for me.

Hope all's well with you, and speak soon x

* All images courtesy of unsplash.com

How to pan powders faster: the Needle Method

Hello and welcome to my post on what I'm calling 'the Needle Method', which is something I've been doing to help me pan powders: it not only helps me pan them faster, but it has other benefits that I'll touch on below.

As you may know, I first started separating the components of my Hourglass Ambient Lighting Blush Palette last year when I was focusing on it via Project Dent, because I realised that I not only had three blush shades in the palette: I also had highlighters and finishing powders, provided I could focus my brush in the pale swirls of each pan - which I could do for a while with a small liner/brow brush in Incandescent Electra because the pearl swirls were wider - but that became too hard eventually and I also couldn't do it with the other two shades.

So I thought, why don't I use a sewing needle or pin? Off I went and found a needle, and the rest is history...

Above is how my blush palette looked in December when I kicked off Pan that Palette 2018, and below is how it's looking now after only one month of use:

So you can see there's been some good movement in only one month, and it's not as though I'm wasting my powders in the Needle Method process because I don't over-apply them (Why would I? I love this palette and it didn't come cheap!) - and I also never waste a drop because I'm not a 'tap off the excess into the air' kind of girl.

On that, why do people do the 'tap off the excess' thing - especially with expensive makeup?! Oh the waste of it... I've never understood that one so feel free to enlighten me in the comments. I rarely get excess on my brush in the first place because I'm gentle with my powders, or if I do (or if I dislodge too much via the Needle Method), then I just tap said excess back into the pan and use it next time. Am I crazy? Well yes. But maybe not for that reason. Or maybe I'm just really bad at makeup...

I digress. Let's talk about my Needle Method.

* Image courtesy of unsplash.com

The Needle Method:

Find a sewing needle or pin and sterilise it.
Go in like a surgeon or archaeologist and carve out/excavate the parts of your powder that you want to use.
Flip and tap your compact so your dislodged powder falls onto a clean tray/desk/whatever.
If any bits of dislodged powder are chunky, grab something flat and crush them (I use the base of a little kabuki brush).
Pick up the crushed powder with whatever brush you're using, then apply away. (Note: I also sweep that brush across the base of my aforementioned kabuki, just because I don't want to waste any of the powder that may have adhered to my 'crushing' tool.)

That's the Needle Method.

But wait, wait, there's more to say...

This little Burberry quad (also part of my Pan that Palette challenge) has been something of a nightmare to use - until I started applying the Needle Method to it too.

Here's how it looked one month ago:

And here's how it's looking now:

The reason why it's been a nightmare to use is because the palest shade has zero pigment, the 'green' is a muddy grey in practice (and it also has rubbish pigment), and the dark brown is ok but it's too dark and not cool enough for me to use as a brow colour on my already forest-like brows. So I need to mix those shades (whether together or with other shadows) to get them to work for me.

However. You know how mixing shadows is fraught with hazard because you can't always get the exact same colour on both eyes/brows when you're going between two pans? (Or maybe that's just me because I'm a big spanner.)

Enter the Needle Method.

What I've been doing is scraping a little of the pale shade out with my needle and then scraping out a little of whatever shade I'm wearing for the day from my custom palette (below). Crush, mix, apply. The shades on my eyes are now always the same.

So are my brow shades. I'm using the 'fake green' and brown for my brows, and while before I was occasionally mixing my brow colour too dark, now that I'm crushing my powders and mixing them before application (sometimes swatching them first to check the shade), my brows are looking how I want them to every day. Huzzah!

I've also been applying the Needle Method to my Clarins bronzer. Here's how it looked last month:

And here's how it's looking now:

Yes I've still been using this as my body bronzer in the usual fashion, but I've also been crushing and mixing bits from the centre to lighten the dark shade from my Burberry quad. Reason being, I don't like going too dark on the outer v for my everyday eye looks - so I've been using the Needle Method to crush/mix the bronzer with the Burberry brown to get an outer v colour that's more my speed.

While I don't have a highlighter to show you at the moment (I will soon, so stay tuned), I've been using the Needle Method for that too with a highlighter I'm panning outside my current projects. It works beautifully to make a shimmery lid shade from any matte shadow I'm panning (eg the dusty rose in the Burberry quad), and it also allows me to adapt a stock-standard champagne highlighter by eg adding some of Luminous Flush from the Hourglass palette so I can wear something different on the high-points of my face for the day - while still using the powders I'm panning. This of course helps with boredom and panning-fatigue!

* Image courtesy of unsplash.com

Why does the Needle Method pan powders faster?

Honestly, I don't know. But I'm panning powders faster than I ever have, and as mentioned above, it's not as though I'm over-applying them or wasting the excess. Eg, if I accidentally crush/mix more shadow than I need, I just save the mix for the next day by sweeping it into one of the Burberry pans.

I wonder, though, whether some of the powder is adhering to my desk when I crush/mix - so perhaps that's why I'm moving through things more quickly? I also think that crushing powders is akin to re-pressing them, which always helps to pan powders faster - especially when it comes to tightly packed mattes.

I should also say that it may depend on the powders in question. The green and pale bronze Burberry shadows aren't pigmented so I do need to use more than I normally would to get them to show up (same goes with the Clarins bronzer), and although the Hourglass blushes are super pigmented on the cheeks, you do need to build them on the eyes (whether you're using the coloured portions of the pans or the pearls), and I also need to build the pearls when I use them as facial highlighters - so I think that helps to speed things along.

Having said this, I'm using the Needle Method on powders in my custom palette that are super pigmented - and they're still moving faster than I would expect. So there's something about the needle process that just works. I can't explain it: it must be some kind of magical panning witchery ; )

* Image courtesy of unsplash.com

In a nutshell: benefits of the Needle Method

The Needle Method helps to:

pan powders faster, which of course helps with motivation because you're seeing progress more quickly
pan BLUSHES faster (the hardest thing to pan, in my experience) because you can dislodge little bits of blush along with highlighters/shimmer shades, crush/mix those and use them as coloured highlighters and/or shimmery lid shades
ensure you're getting the same shades for both sides of your face (cheeks, eyes, brows etc) because you're mixing shades together first, rather than sweeping your brush across separate pans and hoping for the best
encourage you to mix shades that you mightn't otherwise have mixed (potentially creating new mixes that you love), because if you're anything like me, you'll start dislodging/crushing everything you can get your hands on: it's exciting and fun!
'increase' the pigment of low-pigment shades or powders that are losing pigment with age, because you're essentially turning them into loose powders - so they naturally apply with more punch
encourage you to find ways to use powders that you don't love/wouldn't normally use much: eg the dark brown from the Burberry quad, which I've been able to turn into a paler shade via the Needle Method by mixing it with the Clarins bronzer (see above).

There may well be other benefits to the Needle Method that I'll discover as the year progresses, and if so, I'll update this post later on in 2018.

* Image courtesy of unsplash.com

In sum

I really hope this helps! If you have any questions, please ask in the comments and I'll be happy to get back to you : )

I should also say that I wouldn't use the Needle Method with every powder I own. I'm only using it with the Hourglass product because it makes sense to do so (given the different shades in each pan), and I'm using it with the Burberry quad because I don't like it so I'm more than happy to attack it with a needle (really, it's rather therapeutic).

As for the rest of my collection, it's still being used in the usual way (I would never attack my newer/special powders!), but the Needle Method is great for powders that you want to pan - eg because they're getting old, you don't use them enough or you don't love them anymore - so it's something to consider if you're suffering from panning fatigue or boredom, or if you have one of those dastardly powders that just doesn't want to give you some pan.

Hope all's well with you, and speak soon x

little white truths

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